Mature Flâneur
Skye Magic
Scotland’s wildest isle has become a tick-mop for tourists
Ah, the romance, the magic conjured by the “Isle of Skye.” The name itself, (Old Norse for “Misty Isle”) captures the imagination. Skye’s remoteness, its scouring rain and soaring mountains, have placed it in an almost mythological realm. Ironically, that romantic myth is both Skye’s blessing and its curse.
The blessing is that by enticing tourists to this fabled isle, Skye’s sparse population of 13,000 souls — traditionally farmers and fisherfolk — have seen their incomes boom in the past few generations. The curse, however, is that roughly one million outsiders will visit in 2024, straining the infrastructure and the patience of many of the inhabitants.
Teresa (my beloved spouse) and I were ambivalent about including Skye in our Highland fling in the summer of 2024. We wanted to revisit all of our favorite places in Scotland. But the last time we visited Skye, in 2019, it was not pleasant because there were simply too many tourists. The island’s one-lane roads were clogged with camper vans, bringing traffic to a grinding halt. The restaurants had waiting…
